You Still Exist
One of the biggest shocks to me about motherhood was how quickly I went from being a whole person to feeling like I no longer existed. My entire world stopped being about all the things I had built in my 30+ years and became about someone else entirely. A new someone I didn’t know or understand, who took all that I had, body, mind, and spirit. One moment I was me, the next moment I was just the shell of me and my life became about someone else.
I don’t say this with a wholly negative view, after all, I gave myself willingly to this tiny baby. I chose this. But I suppose until you become a mother, there is no way you can understand how you can both lose yourself and find the most important part of your life in the one instant.
I write this blog post to anyone in the thick of early motherhood right now, who’s feeling like they’ve lost themselves. I want you to know that you will get yourself back. I promise. It will take some time, dare I say it, a few years even, but you will start to remember who you are, and begin to be able to rebuild the pieces that made you before children. Until then, you need to look after yourself.
Despite what you may think, you do actually exist. YOU EXIST. You are just as much as a human being as your baby is, and you need to take care of yourself just as much. It’s not selfish. It’s common sense. But when you’re in the mayhem of feeding/sleeping cycles, breastfeeding, pumping or bottle sanitising, nappy changing, endless washing, shushing, cooing, rocking and pleading, all while trying to find the time for a shower so the subtle stench of milk vomit will quit following you around, you can sometimes find it hard to see that sense. Hear this now:
You will be a better mother to your child if you take care of yourself.
You are bending over backwards and giving up everything that is you for this tiny, helpless being, but you need to find the time to give yourself a break. A real break, not a nap that you sneak in here and there, something you truly want, that reminds you of who you were before you became a mother.
For me, this might be a walk by myself. No pram, no dog, just me and my hideously outdated playlist. It might also be going to a café and having a coffee and a chocolate biscuit, or heading to your local shopping centre on your own. It doesn’t matter what your thing is, but just make sure you get out of the house to do it. Us women are queens of guilt and multi-tasking, so if you stay home you will see a dirty dish to put in the dishwasher, or start thinking about dinner prep—stop it. You need to leave everything behind. Express to those you love how important it is that you have this moment to recharge and that they need to help you have it. Cause if you don’t, you will burn out.
That photo above, that is me. I’m in a hotel room in New York. My baby is home in Melbourne, only 9 months old. I had to travel for my fashion business, and it seemed too hard to take my tiny, Evie, so I worked my butt off weaning her, getting her cemented into a routine, training my husband, creating easy to follow, colour-coded spreadsheets for him, and stocking the freezer with ‘boob juice’ and a smorgasbord of pureed fruit and veg. Then I said my goodbyes and hopped on a plane. When I landed in New York, you’d think I’d be eager to see the sights before work took over my trip… no, I spent a day and a half in bed, drinking terrible New York coffee. I didn’t move. I was exhausted. Not from the flight, not from the prep, from mothering. I hadn’t taken care of myself, and I had been running on fumes for 9 months. It wasn’t until I was lying in that deliciously crisp, king-sized bed, with the empire state building somewhere nearby and yet I lay there watching my 13th episode of ‘Arrow’ in a row, did I realise just how mentally drained I was, and that I hadn’t given myself one moment since the day Evie was born.
Recently I went for a walk with a friend, her baby is nearly a year old now, and I could see how burnt out she was. She said to me “the last couple of days I feel like I could just scream”. I demanded she take a moment off for herself and was glad to hear when I texted her the next day that she had.
Don’t let yourself get to that point. We mums feel like we have to do it all and nothing for ourselves, but who are we helping by doing that? Not your child, who needs their mother to be in top form—happy and present. I certainly let myself get to that point, and my friend now has too. We both tried to do absolutely everything we could for our child and forgot about ourselves. We forget we existed; we counted.
You count. You exist.
Now go get a coffee and the biggest slice of cake you can find, and don’t you dare take your child with you. They’ll be just fine under someone else’s supervision for a moment or two. It's time to take back a part of yourself.